The Symbolic Jesus: Historical Scholarship, Judaism and the Construction of Contemporary Identity

This volume addresses the current scholarly controversies that have erupted in the last 20 or so years over the implications of the Judaism of Jesus. Since the early 1970s, a surprising number if historical Jesus scholars have been insisting with increasing shrillness that Jesus was a Jew, and that this fact has significant implications for how one reconstructs the figure of Jesus out of the portraits in ancient Christian literature. While both Christianity itself and New Testament scholarship specifically do indeed have a disturbing anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic legacy, by the 1970s, that legacy largely seemed to have been overcome, at least in mainstream biblical scholarship. This suggests that something more, something subterranean, is involved in the emotionally-charged "debate" over the Judaism of Jesus, a debate over a point no one now disputes, and a debate that generates demonstrably false charges against certain scholars (e.g., John Dominic Crossan, Robert Funk, Burton Mack) as producing a "non-Jewish" Jesus. This book explores the anti-Jewish legacy of past scholarship, shows that the Judaism of Jesus is a more complex issue than many scholars will acknowledge, and explores the subterranean cultural implications of the recent insistence on the Judaism of Jesus. The book concludes that current controversies centered around the Jewishness of Jesus are actually debates about contemporary identity issues - scholarly identities, political identities, religious identities, and the definition of cultural identity itself.

Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher and miracle worker walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the Kingdom of God. The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was captured, tortured, and executed as a state criminal. Within decades after his shameful death, his followers would call him God.

Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history's most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived: first-century Palestine, an age awash in apocalyptic fervor. Scores of Jewish prophets, preachers, and would-be messiahs wandered through the Holy Land, bearing messages from God. This was the age of zealotry - a fervent nationalism that made resistance to the Roman occupation a sacred duty incumbent on all Jews. And few figures better exemplified this principle than the charismatic Galilean who defied both the imperial authorities and their allies in the Jewish religious hierarchy.

Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the historical sources, Aslan describes a man full of conviction and passion, yet rife with contradiction; a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves with swords; an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity a secret; and ultimately the seditious 'King of the Jews' whose promise of liberation from Rome went unfulfilled in his brief lifetime. Aslan explores the reasons why the early Christian church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary. And he grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself, the mystery that is at the heart of all subsequent claims about his divinity.

The study of the ancient Jewish Diaspora is developing in exciting new directions as a result of fresh archaeological material and new frameworks of interpretation. The six studies collected in this volume have been composed by an international group of scholars at the forefront of Diaspora studies and explore key features of the cultural dynamics of the Jewish Diaspora. Studies on Jews in Rome (Margaret Williams) and Alexandria (Sarah Pearce) examine the dialectic of local and translocal identities, including a new theory on Jewish sabbath-fasting in Rome. Through careful analysis of inscriptions in the Balkans (Alexander Panayotov, in the first study of the material in English) and Asia Minor (Paul Trebilco), the often ambiguous expression of Diaspora Jews is examined. Two essays on the historian Josephus (by James McLaren and John Barclay) examine his crafted reconstructions of Judaean history, and indicate his subaltern tactics, deploying the tools of colonial culture for the advantage of his own. A thorough Introduction relates these studies to the broader field of 'Diaspora studies' in current cultural anthropology. This is volume 45 in the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement series.

Two billion people today identify as Christians, with the implication that Jesus is the focus of their relationship with God, and their way of living in the world. Such followers of Jesus are now more numerous and make up a greater proportion of the world's population than ever before. Despite its decline in the West, Christianity is rapidly increasing in areas such as Africa and China. Richard Bauckham explores the historical figure of Jesus, evaluating the sources and concluding that they provide us with good historical evidence for his life and teaching. In order to place Jesus in his proper historical context, as a Jew from Galilee in the early first century of our era, Bauckham looks at Jewish religion and society in the land of Israel under Roman rule. He explores Jesus' symbolic practices as well as his teachings, looks at his public career and emphasises how his actions, such as healing and his association with notorious sinners, were just as important as his words. Bauckham shows that Jesus was devoted to the God of Israel, with a special focus on God's fatherly love and compassion, and like every Jewish teacher he expounded the Torah, but did so in his own distinctive way. With a discussion about the way Jesus understood himself and what finally led to his death as a criminal on a Roman cross, he concludes by considering the significance Jesus has come to have for Christian faith worldwide.

This Companion takes as its starting point the realization that Jesus of Nazareth cannot be studied purely as a subject of ancient history, 'a man like any other man'. History, literature, theology and the dynamic of a living, worldwide religious reality, all appropriately impinge on the study of Jesus. The two parts of the book roughly correspond to the interdependent tasks of historical description and critical and theological reflection. It incorporates the most up-to-date historical work on Jesus the Jew with the 'bigger issues' of critical method, the story of Christian faith and study, and Jesus in a global church and in the encounter with Judaism and Islam.

Written by seventeen leading international scholars, the book encourages students of the historical Jesus to discover the vital contribution of theology, and students of doctrine to engage the Christ of faith as Jesus the first-century Jew.

This title offers an up-to-date picture of Jesus of Nazareth, highlighting the problems and pitfalls encountered in such a venture, and including a survey of current scholarship. The introduction to this new guide sets out the sources (Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Christian), noting the problems connected with them, paying particular attention to the nature of the gospels, and the Synoptic versus the Johannine tradition.
There is a substantial section that will discuss scholarship on Jesus from the nineteenth century to the explosion of works in the present day, introducing and explaining the three different 'quests' for the historical Jesus.
Subsequent chapters of this title will analyse key themes in historical Jesus research: Jesus' Galilean origins; the scope of his ministry and models of 'holy men', particularly that of prophet; Jesus' teaching and healing; his trial and crucifixion; the highly contentious question of his resurrection; and, finally an exploration of the links between the Jesus movement and the early church.
Throughout, the (often opposing) positions of a variety of key scholars will be explained and discussed (eg. Sanders, Crossan, Dunn, Wright, Brown).

In this powerful, groundbreaking work, Boyarin guides us through a rich tapestry of new discoveries and ancient scriptures to make the powerful case that our conventional understandings of Jesus and of the origins of Christianity are wrong. Boyarin's scrupulously illustrated account argues that the coming of the Messiah was fully imagined in the ancient Jewish texts. Jesus, moreover, was embraced by many Jews as this person, and his core teachings were not at all a break from Jewish beliefs and teachings. Jesus and his followers, Boyarin shows, were simply Jewish. What came to be known as Christianity came much later, as religious and political leaders sought to impose a new religious orthodoxy that was not present at the time of Jesus' life.

Daniel Boyarin, Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture and rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. His books include A Radical Jew, Border Lines, and Socrates and the Fat Rabbis. He lives in Berkeley, California.

New Testament scholars have long debated the historical identity of Jesus and the development of Christology within the church's history. In Who Is Jesus? Carl Braaten reviews the various historical Jesus quests, arguing that it is time for the current ("third") quest to admit failure. Against the implication that "the real Jesus has been lost and needs to be found," Braaten maintains that the only real Jesus is the One presented in the canonical Gospels and that "any other Jesus is irrelevant to Christian faith."

He draws on a wealth of historical resources to address such contentious questions as these:

The centre of gravity of contemporary Christianity has shifted to the southern hemisphere. However, except in South America, almost all Christians in the southern hemisphere are minorities in their home countries. In Asia they live amongst the Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Shamanist or Taoist majorities, which are increasingly affecting the Christian theology that is done there. The same is happening in Africa, in the relation between African Christians and traditional African religions. A non-Western theology with its own images and concepts is coming into being.Translated from the original Dutch edition published in 2006, "The Non-Western Jesus" uses the concept 'double transformation' as a guideline in the description of the genesis of this theology. For the author, this term indicates that concepts are applied to Jesus that - in Western opinion - add new dimensions to Jesus, while the concepts themselves are also changed through their application to Jesus. Change thus occurs on both sides. As a result, Jesus is undergoing a transformation that is both unprecedented and exciting.

The Blackwell Companion to Jesus features a comprehensive collection of essays that explore the diverse ways in which Jesus has been imagined or portrayed from the beginnings of Christianity to the present day.

-Considers portrayals of Jesus in the New Testament and beyond, Jesus in non-Christian religions, philosophical and historic perspectives, modern manifestations, and representations in Christian art, novels, and film
-Comprehensive scope of coverage distinguishes this work from similar offerings
-Examines both Christian and non-Christian perspectives on Jesus, including those from ethnic and sexual groups, as well as from other faiths
-Offers rich and rewarding insights which will shape our understanding of this influential figure and his enduring legacy

The New Testament provides abundant evidence that Jesus frequented the temple, as did his followers after his death. But the Gospels also depict Jesus in conflict with temple authorities. Jesus' attitude toward the temple is at the center of current historical Jesus research, yet those discussions are often not current with the latest archaeological and related findings. James H. Charlesworth here gathers essays from world-renowned archaeologists and biblical scholars to address the current state of knowledge and to consider anew vital questions about the temple's significance for Jesus, for his followers, and for New Testament readers today.

Soundings in the Religion of Jesus. Perspectives and Methods in Jewish and Christian Scholarship

Jesus was a Jew and not a Christian. That affirmation may seem obvious, but here an international cast of Jewish and Christian scholars spell out its weighty and often complex consequences for contemporary Jewish-Christian dialogue. Soundings in the Religion of Jesus contextualizes Jesus and the writings about him that set the stage for Jewish-Christian relations for the next two thousand years.

Of equal importance, this book considers the reception, celebration, and (too often) the neglect of Jesus' Jewishness in modern contexts and the impact such responses have had for Jewish-Christian relations. Topics explored include the ethics of scriptural translation, the ideological motives of Nazi theologians and other "quests" for the Historical Jesus, and the ways in which New Testament portraits of Jesus both help and hurt authentic Jewish-Christian dialogue.

Jesus in context seeks to place Jesus in the context of first-century Palestinian Judaism. The authors hope to discern the essence of his preaching, his concept of the kingdom of God, and the place of purity in his teaching and activities.

Better methods for assessing not simply the authenticity of reported sayings and deeds, but for tracing the development of tradition are considered. The authors are convinced that most of the Synoptic tradition is authentic, but that much of it has been reinterpreted and recontextualized. Herein lies the real challenge for those investigating the historical Jesus.
Jesus in context opens up new avenues of study and makes new proposals for understanding Jesus in the context of his place and time.

Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism analyses the ideology underpinning scholarly and popular quests for the historical Jesus in a neoliberal age. The book focus is cultural and political concerns, notably postmodernism, multiculturalism and liberal masking of power. The study explores a range of issues: the dubious periodisation of the quest for the historical Jesus; "biblioblogging"; Jesus the "Great Man" and western individualism; image-conscious Jesus scholarship; the "Jewishness" of Jesus and the multicultural Other; evangelical and "mythical" Jesuses; and the contradictions between personal beliefs and dominant ideological trends in the construction of historical Jesuses.

Little is known about the early childhood of Jesus Christ. But in the decades after his death, stories began circulating about his origins. One collection of such tales was the so-called Infancy Gospel of Thomas, known in antiquity as the Paidika or 'Childhood Deeds' of Jesus. In it, Jesus not only performs miracles while at play (such as turning clay birds into live sparrows) but also gets enmeshed in a series of interpersonal conflicts and curses to death children and teachers who rub him the wrong way. How would early readers have made sense of this young Jesus?

In this highly innovative book, Stephen Davis draws on current theories about how human communities construe the past to answer this question. He explores how ancient readers would have used texts, images, places, and other key reference points from their own social world to understand the Christ child's curious actions. He then shows how the figure of a young Jesus was later picked up and exploited in the context of medieval Jewish-Christian and Christian-Muslim encounters. Challenging many scholarly assumptions, Davis adds a crucial dimension to the story of how Christian history was created.

Stephen J. Davis is professor of religious studies, executive director of the Yale Monastic Archaeology Project, and master of Pierson College at Yale University.

A candid, compelling portrait of the man who has proved so significantand so controversialin Western culture, by two of Europes best known pioneers of the anthropological study of early Christianity. Destro and Pesce bring the fruit of years of scholarship to bear on a radical figure in Roman Galilee, his encounters with others, and the movement those encounters inspired.

The Historiographical Jesus introduces a new theory and approach for studying the life of Jesus. Anthony Le Donne uses the precepts of social memory theory to identify "memory refraction" in the Jesus tradition--the refocusing distortion that occurs as the stories and sayings of Jesus were handed down and consciously and unconsciously framed in new settings with new applications. Recognition of this refraction allows historians to escape the problematic dichotomy between memory and typology. The author focuses on the title "Son of David" as it was used in Jewish and Christian traditions to demonstrate both how his new theory functions and to advance historical Jesus research.

The idea that Jesus was married continues to fascinate. Look no further than Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code for evidence. Or indeed Harvard Professor Karen King's recent discovery of the so called Gospel of Jesus' Wife - a piece of ancient papyrus that made the explosive suggestion in 2012 that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were man and wife. But most who address the topic either dismiss the possibility or propound conspiracy theories, often of Christian origins.

Approaching the subject from a fresh, historical perspective and without appealing to sensationalist stories or dismissing Jesus' sexuality on theological grounds, Le Donne places Jesus firmly within his sociocultural context. By investigating gender and marriage norms - as well as a number of social outliers who defied them - he provocatively argues that Jesus might have been married before he was thirty years of age. Le Donne then points to several indicators that suggest that Jesus was a sexual non-conformist and probably was single during his public career.

Crucially, Le Donne also confronts the changing nature of our quest for Jesus' wife, illuminating the humanity of Jesus, as well as revealing important connections between ancient sexuality and modern spirituality.

How Jesus Became God, The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee

The claim at the heart of the Christian faith is that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. But this is not what the original disciples believed during Jesus's lifetime - and it is not what Jesus claimed about himself. How Jesus Became God tells the story of an idea that shaped Christianity, and of the evolution of a belief that looked very different in the fourth century than it did in the first.

A master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, Ehrman reveals how an apocalyptic prophet from the backwaters of rural Galilee crucified for crimes against the state came to be thought of as equal with the one God Almighty, Creator of all things. How did he move from being a Jewish prophet to being God? In a book that took eight years to research and write, Ehrman sketches Jesus's transformation from a human prophet to the Son of God exalted to divine status at his resurrection. Only when some of Jesus's followers had visions of him after his death - alive again - did anyone come to think that he, the prophet from Galilee, had become God. And what they meant by that was not at all what people mean today.

Written for secular historians of religion and believers alike, How Jesus Became God will engage anyone interested in the historical developments that led to the affirmation at the heart of Christianity: Jesus was, and is, God.

How Jesus Became God, The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee

The claim at the heart of the Christian faith is that Jesus of Nazareth was, and is, God. But this is not what the original disciples believed during Jesus's lifetime - and it is not what Jesus claimed about himself. How Jesus Became God tells the story of an idea that shaped Christianity, and of the evolution of a belief that looked very different in the fourth century than it did in the first.

A master explainer of Christian history, texts, and traditions, Ehrman reveals how an apocalyptic prophet from the backwaters of rural Galilee crucified for crimes against the state came to be thought of as equal with the one God Almighty, Creator of all things. How did he move from being a Jewish prophet to being God? In a book that took eight years to research and write, Ehrman sketches Jesus's transformation from a human prophet to the Son of God exalted to divine status at his resurrection. Only when some of Jesus's followers had visions of him after his death - alive again - did anyone come to think that he, the prophet from Galilee, had become God. And what they meant by that was not at all what people mean today.

Written for secular historians of religion and believers alike, How Jesus Became God will engage anyone interested in the historical developments that led to the affirmation at the heart of Christianity: Jesus was, and is, God.

This book contains an introduction by James H. Charlesworth. A modern scholarly classic now updated, The Sage of Galilee offers a thorough look at the historical sources regarding life in the first century through the Dead Sea Scrolls, recent archaeological discoveries, and other means of inquiry. Both Jewish and Christian readers will find challenge and new understanding in this work.

Paula Fredriksen is the author of Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, which won the National Jewish Book Award. She is also the author of Augustine and the Jews and From Jesus to Christ. The Aurelio Professor Emerita at Boston University, she now teaches as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Ancient Palestinian and Babylonian rabbinic literature developed in a context of constant exposure to and challenge by the dominant Graeco-Roman and Babylonian cultures. Rabbinic legal thinking is unlikely to have constituted an exception in this regard. Yet the positivistic search for influences is increasingly seen as inappropriate in recent scholarship. What is much more important is to investigate the ways in which rabbinic legal thinking participated in ancient Graeco-Roman and Near Eastern legal thinking, to determine which legal topics and forms were shared, where similar conclusions were reached, and where differences can be discerned. In this way the boundaries between ancient Jewish and non-Jewish legal traditions become increasingly blurred.
The contributions to this volume, which is the outcome of an interdisciplinary conference held at Trinity College Dublin in March 2002, address a variety of issues. Both internal and external aspects of legal texts are investigated, documentary texts are discussed alongside literary texts, and the Graeco-Roman context of Palestinian legal traditions is supplemented by the Sasanian context of Babylonian halakhah. In addition, the general legal situation in the Roman Empire at large and Roman Palestine in particular is elucidated.K 71

Refusing a false dichotomy between "politics" and "religion" in Jesus' world (and our own), Jesus and the Powers rediscovers Jesus' response to the imperial power of his day. Richard A. Horsley describes the relevance of political realities under great empires for understanding the rise of covenantal theology and apocalyptic vision in Israel's history. Then he explores aspects of Jesus' activity in the context of the Roman Empire. Horsley examines Jesus as an exorcist and prophetic figure and the character of his death by crucifixion. He also shows how the community life in the early Pauline assemblies gave form to a new response to imperial powers--and stimulus to contemporary readers to re-imagine their own response to political realities in our own day.

The Prophet Jesus and the Renewal of Israel: Moving Beyond a Diversionary Debate

Debate over whether or not Jesus can be best interpreted within an "apocalyptic scenario" has continued to dominate historical Jesus studies since Schweitzer and Bultmann. In The Prophet Jesus and the Renewal of Israel Richard Horsley shows that the apocalyptic scenario -- with its supposed expectation of "the end of the world," the fiery "last judgment," and "the parousia of the Son of Man" -- is a modern scholarly construct that obscures the particulars of texts, society, and history. Drawing on his wide-ranging earlier scholarship, Horsley refocuses and reformulates investigation of the historical Jesus in a thoroughly relational-contextual approach. He recognizes that the sources for the historical Jesus are not separate sayings, but rather the sustained Gospel narratives of Jesus' mission. Horsley's new approach finds Jesus the popular prophet engaged in a movement of renewal, resistance, and judgment against Roman imperialism, Jerusalem rulers, and the Pharisees.

Jesus: a first-century Jew from Galilee, a small and remote province of the Roman Empire. No other person has had such a profound and far-reaching influence on world history. But what, historically, can we know about him? And what are we to make of the kaleidoscope of beliefs and images that people have since built up around him? Those are the two essential questions investigated by J. L. Houlden in this absorbing account of the key historical, theological and cultural issues surrounding the enigmatic figure of Jesus. Written primarily for the enquiring lay person, this is a book that will engage the interest of believer and non-believer alike. It will also provide a clear and concise introduction fr anyone studying the origins and evolution of Christianity as a major world religion.

Jesus: The Complete Guide offers an analysis of the following subjects: - Christian beliefs - from the New Testament and the patristic period to contemporary feminist and liberation theologies - Christian worship and prayer - including Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican, and Pentecostal approaches as well as hymns and mystical practices - Intellectual developments -from Augustine and Thomas Aquinas to Calvin and modern theologians like Albert Schweitzer, Karl Rahner and N. T. Wright - Culture-art, music, scripture, and literature from the period of the early Church and the Renaissance to the twentieth century - Interactions with other world faiths (including Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism) and local traditions (including those in Europe, America, Africa, Russia and China)

The Mystery of the Last Supper. Reconstructing the Final Days of Jesus

For hundreds of years, we thought we knew what happened during Jesus' last days. Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday are not only observed by Christians around the world, but are also recognized in calendars and by non-practitioners as commemorating the true timeline of events in the life of Christ. But apparent inconsistencies in the gospel accounts of Jesus' final week have puzzled Bible scholars for centuries. In The Mystery of the Last Supper, published in 2011, Colin Humphreys uses science to reveal the truth about Jesus' final days. Reconciling conflicting Gospel accounts and scientific evidence, Humphreys reveals the exact date of the Last Supper in a definitive new timeline of Holy Week.

Jesus Among Her Children. Q, Eschatology, and the Construction of Christian Origins

Was Jesus a wisdom sage or an apocalyptic prophet? Did later followers view him as the Danielic "Son of Man" or did he use this expression for himself? These are familiar questions among historical Jesus scholars, and there has been much debate over Jesus' eschatological outlook since the controversial work of the Jesus Seminar. This book asks what is at stake in these debates and explores how scholarly constructions of Christian origins participate in contemporary efforts to confirm or challenge particular understandings of the essence of Christianity. Proposing that a Jesus-centered perspective has overly shaped our interpretation of the sayings source Q, Johnson-DeBaufre offers alternative readings to key Q texts, readings that place an interest in the community that shaped Jesus at the center of inquiry.

Criteria of authenticity, whose roots go back to before the pioneering work of Albert Schweitzer, have become a unifying feature of the so-called Third Quest for the Historical Jesus, finding a prominent and common place in the research of otherwise differing scholars. More recently, however, scholars from different methodological frameworks have expressed discontent with this approach to the historical Jesus. In the past five years, these expressions of discontent have reached a fever pitch.

The internationally renowned authors of this book examine the nature of this new debate and present the findings in a cohesive way aimed directly at making the coalface of Historical Jesus research accessible to undergraduates and seminary students. The book's larger ramifications as a thorough end to the Third Quest will provide a pressure valve for thousands of scholars who view historical Jesus studies as outmoded and misguided. This book has the potential to guide Jesus studies beyond the Third Quest and demand to be consulted by any scholar who discards, adopts, or adapts historical criteria.

Despite many scholars' assumptions that Jesus was an illiterate peasant or, conversely, even a Pharisee none have critically engaged the evidence to ask 'Could Jesus read or write?' Some studies have attempted to provide a direct answer to the question using the limited primary evidence that exists. However, these previous attempts have not been sufficiently sensitive to the literary environment of Second Temple Judaism, an area that has seen significant scholarly progression in the last ten to fifteen years. They have provided un-nuanced classifications of Jesus as either "literate" or "illiterate" rather than observing that literacy at this time did not fall into such monolithic categories. An additional contribution of this work is in the area of criteria of authenticity in Historical Jesus studies. Emphasizing plausibility and the later effects of the Historical Jesus Chris L. Keith argues that the most plausible explanation for why the early Church remembered Jesus simultaneously as a literate Jewish teacher and an illiterate Jewish teacher was that he was able to convince his contemporaries of both realities.

Jonathan Klawans's Josephus and the Theologies of Ancient Judaism cuts against the grain of rabbinic studies to establish the value of Flavius Josephus's descriptions of the religious ideas of various Jewish sects for reconstructing the world of ideas (the theologies) at play in early Judaism. It is intended as a response to the prevalent approach to the study of early Judaism, which focuses on legal or halakhic issues rather than matters of religious belief. Klawans illuminates Josephus's description of early Jewish sects (the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes) against distinct bodies of literature including Rabbinic sources, Qumran scrolls, and wisdom literature, especially Ben Sira. He is also concerned to show how various beliefs operate in connection with historical events, from the Hasmonean rebellion to after the destruction of the Temple. He demonstrates, for example, that beliefs about resurrection may have been less a reaction to social or historical circumstances than scholars have claimed and that the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE may not have created such a severe theological crises as previously thought. He provides alternative explanations for beliefs about the afterlife and shows that the reaction to the Temple's loss may have been more easily dealt with in terms of preexisting theological ideas and analogies. In each case, Klawans brings to the forefront Josephus's own views about these matters and shows how they are important for a more balanced assessment of the history of early Judaism.

In the The Misunderstood Jew, scholar Amy-Jill Levine helps Christians and Jews understand the "Jewishness" of Jesus so that their appreciation of him deepens and a greater interfaith dialogue can take place. Levine's humor and informed truth-telling provokes honest conversation and debate about how Christians and Jews should understand Jesus, the New Testament, and each other.

Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God

What does it mean for Jesus to be 'deified' in early Christian literature? Early Christians did not simply assert Jesus' divinity; in their literature, they depicted Jesus with the specific and widely recognized traits of Mediterranean deities.

Relying on the methods of the history of religions and ranging judiciously across Hellenistic literature, M. David Litwa shows that at each stage in their depiction of Jesus' life and ministry, early Christian writings from the beginning relied on categories drawn not from Judaism alone, but on a wide, pan-Mediterranean understanding of deity.

A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Volume 4 : Law and Love

John Meier's previous volumes in the acclaimed series A Marginal Jew are founded upon the notion that while solid historical information about Jesus is quite limited, people of different faiths can nevertheless arrive at a consensus on fundamental historical facts of his life. In this eagerly anticipated fourth volume in the series, Meier approaches a fresh topic - the teachings of the historical Jesus concerning Mosaic Law and morality - with the same rigour, thoroughness, accuracy, and insightfulness on display in his earlier works. After correcting misconceptions about Mosaic Law in Jesus' time, this volume addresses the teachings of Jesus on major legal topics like divorce, oaths, the Sabbath, purity rules, and the various love commandments in the Gospels. What emerges from Meier's research is a profile of a complicated first-century Palestinian Jew who, far from seeking to abolish the Law, was deeply engaged in debates about its observance. Only by embracing this portrait of the historical Jesus grappling with questions of the Torah do we avoid the common mistake of constructing Christian moral theology under the guise of studying 'Jesus and the Law', the author concludes.

Christ among the Messiahs. Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism

Recent scholarship on ancient Judaism, finding only scattered references to messiahs in Hellenistic- and Roman-period texts, has generally concluded that the word "messiah" did not mean anything determinate in antiquity. Meanwhile, interpreters of Paul, faced with his several hundred uses of the Greek word for "messiah," have concluded that "christos" in Paul does not bear its conventional sense. Against this curious consensus, Matthew Novenson argues in Christ among the Messiahs that all contemporary uses of such language, Paul's included, must be taken as evidence for its range of meaning. In other words, early Jewish messiah language is the kind of thing of which Paul's Christ language is an example. Looking at the modern problem of Christ and Paul, Novenson shows how the scholarly discussion of "christos" in Paul has often been a cipher for other, more urgent interpretive disputes. He then traces the rise and fall of "the messianic idea" in Jewish studies and gives an alternative account of early Jewish messiah language: the convention worked because there existed both an accessible pool of linguistic resources and a community of competent language users.

Amid competing portrayals of the "cynic Jesus," the "peasant Jesus," and the "apocalyptic Jesus," the "political Jesus" remains a marginal figure. Douglas E. Oakman argues that advances in our social-scientific understanding of the political economy of Roman Galilee, as well as advances in the so-called "Third Quest" for the historical Jesus, warrant a revival—and a critical revision—of H. S. Reimarus's understanding of Jesus as an instigator of revolutionary change.
Browse by Subject

In this Spanish bestseller, now available in English for the first time, the Biblical scholar Jose Antonio Pagola reconstructs the historical Jesus with a scholarly exegetical and theological approach. He addresses basic questions about who Jesus was; how he understood his life; what was the originality of his message; how the vision of the Kingdom of God centered his life; and why he was executed and who intervened in the process. The author presents a lively and passionate narrative of Jesus of Nazareth within the milieu of the first century, locating him in his social, economical, political and religious contexts based on current and accepted research. He also analyzes the perspectives and conclusions of the most important scholars in this research and presents a profound and extensive scholarly theological reflection about Jesus.

The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in Its Social and Political Context

Michael Peppard examines the social and political meaning of divine sonship in the Roman Empire. He begins by analyzing the conceptual framework within which the term "son of God" has traditionally been considered in biblical scholarship. Then, through engagement with recent scholarship in Roman history - including studies of family relationships, imperial ideology, and emperor worship - he offers new ways of interpreting the Christian theological metaphors of "begotten"and "adoptive" sonship. Peppard focuses on social practices and political ideology, revealing that scholarship on divine sonship has been especially hampered by mistaken assumptions about adopted sons. He invites fresh readings of several early Christian texts, from the first Gospel to writings of the fourth century. By re-interpreting several ancient phenomena - particularly divine status, adoption, and baptism - he offers an imaginative refiguring of the Son of God in the Roman world.

The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in Its Social and Political Context

Michael Peppard examines the social and political meaning of divine sonship in the Roman Empire. He begins by analyzing the conceptual framework within which the term "son of God" has traditionally been considered in biblical scholarship. Then, through engagement with recent scholarship in Roman history - including studies of family relationships, imperial ideology, and emperor worship - he offers new ways of interpreting the Christian theological metaphors of "begotten"and "adoptive" sonship. Peppard focuses on social practices and political ideology, revealing that scholarship on divine sonship has been especially hampered by mistaken assumptions about adopted sons. He invites fresh readings of several early Christian texts, from the first Gospel to writings of the fourth century. By re-interpreting several ancient phenomena - particularly divine status, adoption, and baptism - he offers an imaginative refiguring of the Son of God in the Roman world.

Comprehensively detailing the sources for our knowledge of Jesus, Theissen and Merz fully explore the historical and social context of Jesus and his activity. They then unfold what we can know about Jesus' characteristics as a charismatic teacher, a Jewish prophet, a healer, a teller of parables, and an ethical teacher. Finally, they examine closely the historical questions surrounding Jesus' last supper, his violent death, the accounts of Easter, and the beginnings of Christology.

Beholden to neither ancient dogma nor contemporary fantasy, written in a clear style with a variety of learning aids, The Historical Jesus will provide students, teachers, and other individuals with a fascinating and reliable guide into this most exciting field of Jesus research.

"The Nativity", "Passion" and "Resurrection" are the three defining episodes in the life of Jesus, forming the foundations of the Christian tradition. But what is the truth behind these epoch-making events? Geza Vermes is one of the world's most respected bibilical historians. Bringing together his three acclaimed works on the life of Jesus in one volume, this book examines the circumstances surrounding the miraculous birth of Jesus, from the prophetic star to Herod's murderous decree; looks afresh at the arrest, trial and execution of this Jewish charismatic; and, finally analyses Jesus' crucifixion and the subsequent sightings of him by his disciples. Drawing on the New Testament, Jewish documents and sources from classical literature and history, these works separate myth from fact to penetrate the deeper meanings of the story of Christ.

An authoritative exploration of Christ that takes a fresh approach to his life and gives equal voice to both the New Testament and early Jewish writing. Describing him, not as a man who believed himself to be divine, but more as a Palestinian with a message for the people of the world, this book will transform modern views of Jesus

Christianity was born nearly 2000 years ago in ancient Palestine. It has shaped the course of human history. Yet historians still cannot say how it really began. How did a 1st-century preacher called Jesus manage to spark a new religion? It is one of the biggest and most profound of all historical mysteries. This extraordinary book, based seven years of secret research by a brilliant historian, finally provides the answer.